1. Empowering Professional Openness through Groups, Networks and Collectives Vancouver, BC Oct. 2009 Terry Anderson, Ph.D. Canada Research Chair in Distance Education

2. Introduction Terry Anderson’s CV in Wordle Tag Cloud

5. Anderson & Anderson,( submitted for publication)

6. Presentation Overview Brief scan of the environment Taxonomy of the Many Groups Networks Collectives The Open Scholar

7. Values We can (and must) continuously improve the quality, effectiveness, appeal, cost and time efficiency of the learning experience. User control and freedom is integral to 21st Century life-long education and learning. Access to learning only for elites is not sufficient for planetary survival.

8. Harmonizing Disruptive Technologies “Managing and aligning pedagogical, technical and administrative issues is a necessary condition of success when using emerging technologies for learning” But it takes leadership andusually entails disruption Gregor Kennedy et al. , Melbourne Educating the Net Generation: A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy , 2009

9. Recent history of Higher education Innovation Last systemic innovation was the emergence of the community colleges and open and alternative colleges of the 1960’s Last 40 years of reform: Examples: Problem based learning, faculty development, community, collaborative, technology enhanced learning Peripheral and outside of main stream rewards and strategic planning “ We can no longer pursue an add-on approach to the changing faculty role” Rice, Eugene. (2006). From Athens and Berlin to LA: Faculty Work and the New Academy

10. Promising Signs Ubiquity and multi-functionality of web 2.0 Growth of openness and online resources, OERs Increasingly effective pedagogical models and learning activities Real educational alternatives – including private sector Death and retirement

11. Aligning with 21 Century students Students are NOT deeply digitally engaged, empowered, nor skilled and certainly not homogeneous But they “arrive at college with well-established methods of sorting, doubting, and ignoring” “odd kind of student — one who appears polite and dutiful but who cares little about the course work, the larger questions it raises, or the value of living an examined life” Tom Clysdale, 2009 Wake Up and Smell the New Epistemology Or is the life that we examine in formal education? We can no longer maintain interest and enthusiasm based on respect and superior knowledge

12. Net Presence means Creating and Sustaining Social Capital “Relationships, more than information, determine how problems are solvedor opportunities exploited.” p. 17 Looi2001)

13. Choosing the righttool(s)? LMS Or KMS http://www.go2web20.net over 3000 apps 13

14. Taxonomy of the ‘Many’ – A Conceptual ModelDron and Anderson, 2007 Group Conscious membership Leadership and organization Cohorts and paced Rules and guidelines Access and privacy controls Focused and often time limited May be blended F2F Metaphor : Virtual classroom 14

15. Formal Learning and Groups Long history of research and study Established sets of tools Classrooms, VLEs Synchronous (F2F, video & net conferencing) Email Need to develop face to face, mediated and blended group learning skills Garrison and Anderson, 2001

16. Critical Tools for Group Learning Environments Collaborative tools Document creation, management, versioning Time lines, calendars, Strong notifications Security, trust hosting on institutional space? Behind firewalls, away from search engines Decision making and project management tools Synchronous and asynchronous conversations/meetings

17. Groups as Communities of Practice Wengler’s ideas of Community of Practice mutual engagement – synchronous and notification tools joint enterprise – collaborative projects, “pass the course” a shared repertoire – common tools, VLEs, IM and doc sharing

18. Online communities are a means to help preserve and continue the interests, knowledge and culture of a group bound by common interests. Looi, C. K. (2001) Looi, C. K. (2001). Enhancing learning ecology on the Internet Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 17(1), 13-20

19. Distributed web 2.0 Group Tools

20. Problems with Groups Restrictions in time, space, pace, & relationship - NOT OPEN Often overly confined by teacher expectation and institutional curriculum control Usually Isolated from the authentic world of practice “low tolerance of internal difference, sexist and ethicized regulation, high demand for obedience to its norms and exclusionary practices.” Cousin & Deepwell 2005 Group think (Baron, 2005) Poor preparation for Lifelong Learning beyond the course Relationships Paulsen (1993) Law of Cooperative Freedom

22. Opportunity to do well and be recognized

23. Chance to meet cool people and engage in cool activities

24. Disequilibrium (Dewey)

25. Rewards - formal education’s last strategic advantage Frontier College Archives

26. Groups Summary Groups are necessary, but not sufficient for quality learning

27. Group Network Shared interest/practice Fluid membership Friends of friends Reputation and altruism driven Emergent norms, structures Activity ebbs and flows Rarely F2F Metaphor: Virtual Community of Practice 23

28. Networks add diversity to learning “People who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas” Burt, 2005, p. 90

29. Collaborative Learning In Groups Cooperative Learning in Networks (Paulsen, 2008) Compelling, not compulsory activities

31. Google Wave ?? Wave completely demolishes the line between synchronous and asynchronous communication.Mike Feldstein, Oct 2009

32. Communities of Practice Networks Distributed Share common interest Self organizing looser aggregation defined by a range of loose and tight links No expectation of meeting or even knowing all members of the Network Little expectation of reciprocity Contribute for social capital, altruism and a sense of improving the world/practice through contribution (Brown and Duguid, 2001)

33. Transparency The ability to view and share thoughts, actions, resources, ideas and interests of others. “radically increase learner awareness of others’ learning activities in the PLE” Marc van Harmelen Manchester PLE Dalsgaard, C., & Paulsen, M. (2009) Transparency in Cooperative Online Education

34. Major Challenges in Creating Incentives to Sustain Contribution to Networks The New Yorker September 12, 2005

35. "the network contains within it antagonistic clusterings, divergent sub-topologies, rogue nodes" Galloway and Thacker, 2007 p. 34 “There is crack in everything, that's how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/eeblet/423397690/

36. Connectivist Learning emergent practice, rather than prescribed education. Helping and scaffolding students to construct, connect, explore and mash resources and people to create contexts, that induce learning. George Siemens

37. Network Pedagogies 33 Connectivism Participatory Pedagogy- Students as content-co-creators, peer teaching Complexity Learning in environments in which activities and outcomes emerge in response to authentic need creates powerful learning opportunities Learning at the edge of chaos Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education See the Networked Student by Wendy Drexler

38. Student Organized Networks

40. Network Tool Set (example) t 36 Stepanyan, Mather & Payne, 2007

41. Access Controls in Elgg

42. Voicethread.com

43. Network Learning EnvironmentSummary Cooperative versus collaborative Compelling but optional interaction Persistence Transparency Finding, building and enriching connections inside and outside of the “course”

44. Group Network Collective ‘Aggregated other’ Unconscious ‘wisdom of crowds’ Stigmergic aggregation Algorithmic rules Augmentation and annotation More used, more useful Data Mining Never F2F Metaphor: Wisdom of Crowds 40

45. Formal Education and Collectives 41 “a kind of cyber-organism, formed from people linked algorithmically…it grows through the aggregation of Individual, Group and Networked activities” Dron & Anderson, 2007 Collectives used to aggregate, then filter, compare, contrast and recommend. Personal and collaborative search and filter for learning Allows discovery and validation of norms, values, opinion and “ways of understanding” Educational semantic web “They follow not the logic of the network but of the set. They are aggregations that appear in some ways as a single entity” Dron & Anderson, 2009.On the Design of Collective Applications

46. Aggregation Data Mining Online Actions Filter & Select

47. Collective Tools 43 Crowd Sourcing

48. Collective Examples

49. Groups Networks Taxonomy of the Many Collectives Dron and Anderson, 2007

50. Personal Learning Environments Easy to use Personally configurable Gadgets, widgets Push and pull data Multiple machines, portable Reflective spaces, Creating net presence and social capital

51. Dron & Anderson, 2008

52. Social Learning 2.0 Applications in Educational Contexts

53. Openaccessweek.athabascau.ca

54. Open Scholar “the Open Scholar is someone who makes their intellectual projects and processes digitally visible and who invites and encourages ongoing criticism of their work and secondary uses of any or all parts of it--at any stage of its development”. Gideon Burton Academic Evolution Blog

55. Open Scholars Create: A new type of education work maximizing: Social learning Media richness Participatory and connectivist pedagogies Ubiquity and persistence Open data collection and research process Creating connections

56. Open Scholars Use and Contribute Open Educational Resources Because it saves time!!!

58. Open Scholars Self Archive Quality scholarship is peer and public reviewed, accessible, persistent syndicated, commented and transparent.

59. Open Scholars Apply their research

60. Open Scholars do Open Research Open Notebook: a laboratory notebook that is freely available and indexed on common search engines. …it is essential that all of the information available to the researchers to make their conclusions is equally available to the rest of the world. —Jean-Claude Bradley

61. Open Scholars Filter and Share With Others

62. Open Scholars support emerging Open Learning alternatives

63. Open Scholars Publish in Open Access Journals Open Access Journals have increased citation ratings: Work in progress with Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Ferne University, Germany Analysis of Google citations for 12 Distance Education Journals (using Harzing’s Publish or Perish tool) 6 open access, 6 commercially published Early results show roughly equal citations/paper, but recent gains in citations by open access journals

64. Open Scholars Create Open Access Books Upcoming Emerging Technologies in DE edited by George Veletsiano

65. Open Scholars comment openly on the works of others Bookmarking and Annotation add value Cite-u-like, Brainify, Diigo, Delicious etc VLE additions like Margenalia.

66. Open Scholars Build Networks

67. Open Scholars Lobby for Copyright Reform Source: swiss-copyright.ch

68. Open Scholars Assign Open Textbooks

69. Open Scholars Induce Open Students Students as co-creators Students gaining experience as writers, authors and teachers Getting over the use, but don’t contribute barrier Students engaged in meaningful work Extensive literature on value of peer instruction - especially for gifted students Empowering learners as future teachers

70. Open Scholars support Open Students OpenStudents.Org

71. Open Scholars Teach Open Courses George Siemens & Stephen Downes Introduction au technologieémergentes Dave Cormier Alec CuorosOpen Access Course: Social Media & Open Education (Fall 2009)

72. Open Scholars Research Openness

73. Open Scholars are Change Agents Open scholars develop tools and techniques to help cross-pollination, sustain and grow effective learning networks. From (Looi 2001).

74. Open Scholars Battle with Time Save Time by using the efforts of others I haven’t got the time to save!

75. Open Scholars are Involved in the Future Through personal experience we forge an ecology of lifelong learning.

76. Conclusion “Open Access is more than a new model for scholarly publishing, it is the only ethical move available to scholars who take their own work seriously enough to believe its value lies in how well it engages many publics and not just a few peers.” Gideon Burton, Academic Evolution Blog

77. Your comments and questions most welcomed! Terry Anderson terrya@athabascau.ca Homepage: http://cde.athabascau.ca/faculty/terrya.php Blog: terrya.edublogs.org